Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho"


Harold Schechter - 1989
    Photographs would show him across the country: a slight, Midwestern man with a twisted little smile, a man who had lived for ten years in his own world of murder and depravity.Here is the grisly true story of Ed Gein, the killer whose fiendish fantasies inspired Alfred Hitchcock's “Psycho”—the mild-mannered farmhand bound to his domineering mother, driven into a series of gruesome and bizarre acts beyond all imagining. In chilling detail, Deviant explores the incredible career of one of the most twisted madmen in the annals of American crime—and how he turned a small Wisconsin farmhouse into his own private playground of ghoulishness and blood.From the Heartland of America comes a true story more horrifying than any movie or novel…Harold Schechter's acclaimed true-crime chronicle…DEVIANT

To Love and To Kill


M. William Phelps - 2015
    When the file was handed to a veteran investigator, he knew Heather was dead. The challenge was to find her body—and whoever killed her. Soon, a sordid triangle of sex, jealousy, and rage came to light. The killers were cunning, manipulative, depraved—and they were as close to Heather as a man and a woman could possibly be. Vividly recreated by master investigative journalist M. William Phelps, this riveting account of seething small-town passions is a classic tale of crime and justice. Includes 16 Pages Of Dramatic Photos

Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America


Les Standiford - 2011
    In the aftermath of that six-year old's abduction and slaying in 1981, everything about the nation's regard and response to missing children changed.The shock of the crime and the inability of law enforcement to find Adam's killer put an end to innocence, and altered our very perception of childhood itself - gone forever are the days when young children burst out the doors of American homes with a casual promise to be home by dark. And, due in large part to the efforts of Adam's parents, John and Reve Walsh, the entire mechanism of law enforcement has transformed itself in an effort to protect our children.Before Adam went missing, there were no children's faces on milk cartons and billboards, no Amber Alerts, no national Center for Missing and Abused Children, no national databases for crimes against children, no registration of pedophiles - in fact, it was easier to mobilize the FBI to search for a stolen car or missing horse than for a kidnapped child. Such facts may be sad testimony to the weariness of a modern world, but there is also an uplifting aspect to Adam's story - the 27 years of undaunted effort by decorated Miami Beach Homicide Detective, Joe Matthews, to track down Adam's killer and bring justice to bear at long last.Bringing Adam Home tells the story - the good, the bad, and the ugly - of what it took for one cop to accomplish what an entire system of law enforcement could not. Matthews' achievement is a stirring one, reminding us that such concepts as hard work, dedication, and love, survive, and that goodness can prevail.

Bogeyman - He Was Every Parent's Nightmare


Steve Jackson - 2014
    He thought of them as "throwaway kids"--hardly missed, and soon forgotten, except by those who loved them. He was ever parent's worst nightmare. The bogeyman they warned their children about ... the fiend who lurked outside bedroom windows.

Dead By Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer?


Ann Rule - 1995
    Her Crime Files volumes, based on fascinating case histories, have assured her reputation as our premier chronicler of crime. Now the former Seattle policewoman brings us the horrific account of a charismatic man adored by beautiful and brilliant women who always gave him what he wanted...sex, money, their very lives.... When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van in the fast lane of an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. But there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled down to family life on a luxurious estate. But gradually, their marriage became a nightmare.... In this gripping account of Cheryl's murder, Ann Rule takes us from Brad's troubled boyhood to one of the most bizarre trials in legal history, uncovering multiple marriages, financial manipulations, infidelities, and monstrous acts of harassment and revenge along the way. Dead By Sunset is Ann Rule at her riveting best.

My Sweet Angel: The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood


John Glatt - 2016
    Prosecutors alleged that the 27-year-old mother had poisoned him with high concentrations of salt through his stomach tube.To the outside world, Spears had seemed like the perfect mother, regularly posting dramatic updates on her son’s harrowing medical problems, but in reality, she was a text book case of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. From the time he was an infant, she deliberately made Garnett sick to elicit sympathy from medical professionals, as well as her hundreds of followers on Facebook and other social media. When a Westchester County jury found her guilty of killing Garnett in April 2015, she was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison.Using Spears's own never-before-seen Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts, an exclusive prison interview with Spears herself, as well as interviews with her family and the three police investigators who broke the case, My Sweet Angel provides the definitive account of this shocking case.

If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children


Gregg Olsen - 2014
    The tragic story of Susan Powell and her murdered boys, Charlie and Braden, is the only case that rivals the Jon Benet Ramsey saga in the annals of true crime. When the pretty, blonde Utah mother went missing in December of 2009 the media was swept up in the story – with lenses and microphones trained on Susan's husband, Josh. He said he had no idea what happened to his young wife, and that he and the boys had been camping in the middle of a snowstorm.Over the next three years bombshell by bombshell, the story would reveal more shocking secrets. Josh's father, Steve, who was sexually obsessed with Susan, would ultimately be convicted of unspeakable perversion. Josh's brother, Michael, would commit suicide. And in the most stunning event of them all, Josh Powell would murder his two little boys and kill himself with brutality beyond belief.

Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez


Philip Carlo - 1996
    The shocking true story behind the serial killer case that inspired the hit Netflix series!Painstakingly researched over three years, based on nearly one hundred hours of exclusive interviews with Richard Ramirez on California's Death Row, The Night Stalker is the definitive account of America's most feared serial murderer.From Ramirez's earliest brushes with the law to his deadliest stalking expeditions to the unprecedented police and civilian manhunt that resulted in one of the most sensational trials in California history, The Night Stalker is an eerie and spellbinding descent into the very heart of human evil.It is more than epic nonfiction at its most brutally real - it is true crime masterpiece.

The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy


Elizabeth Kendall - 1981
    However, very rarely do we hear from the women he left behind—the ones forgotten as mere footnotes in this tragedy. This updated and expanded reissue of Elizabeth Kendall’s 1981 book The Phantom Prince chronicles her intense, six-year relationship with Ted Bundy and its eventual unraveling. Featuring a new introduction and a new afterword by the author, never-before-seen photos, and a new chapter from the author’s daughter, Molly, this gripping account presents a remarkable examination of obsession, intrigue, and the darkness that love can mask.

A Place Called Waco: A Survivor's Story


David Thibodeau - 1999
    Intrigued and frustrated with a stalled music career, Thibodeau gradually became a follower and moved to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. He remained there until April 19, 1993, when the compound was stormed and burnt to the ground after a 51-day standoff.In this book, Thibodeau explores why so many people came to believe that Koresh was divinely inspired. We meet the men, women, and children of Mt. Carmel. We get inside the day-to-day life of the community. Thibodeau is brutally honest about himself, Koresh, and the other members, and the result is a revelatory look at life inside a cult.But Waco is just as brutally honest when it comes to dissecting the actions of the United States government. Thibodeau marshals an array of evidence, some of it never previously revealed, and proves conclusively that it was our own government that caused the Waco tragedy, including the fires. The result is a memoir that reads like a thriller, with each page taking us closer to the eventual inferno.

Who Killed These Girls?: The Twenty-Five-Year History of Austin's Yogurt Shop Murders


Beverly Lowry - 2016
    On December 6, 1991, the naked, bound-and-gagged bodies of four girls--each one shot in the head--were found in an "I Can't Believe It's Yogurt!" shop in Austin, Texas. Grief, shock, and horror spread out from their families and friends to overtake the city itself. Though all branches of law enforcement were brought to bear, the investigation was often misdirected, and after eight years only two men (then teenagers) were tried; moreover, their subsequent convictions were eventually overturned, and Austin PD detectives are still working on what is now a very cold case. Over the decades, the story has grown to include DNA technology, false confessions, and other developments facing crime and punishment in contemporary life, but this story belongs to the scores of people involved, and from them Lowry has fashioned a riveting saga that reads like a Russian novel, comprehensive and thoroughly engrossing.

Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer


John E. Douglas - 2007
    history. For 31 years a man who called himself BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) terrorized the city of Wichita, Kansas, sexually assaulting and strangling a series of women, taunting the police with frequent communications, and bragging about his crimes to local newspapers and TV stations. After disappearing for nine years, he suddenly reappeared, complaining that no one was paying enough attention to him and claiming that he had committed other crimes for which he had not been given credit. When he was ultimately captured, BTK was shockingly revealed to be Dennis Rader, a 61-year-old married man with two children.

Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder


Jerry Bledsoe - 1988
    Months later, another wealthy widow and her prominent son and daughter-in-law were found savagely slain in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mystified police first suspected a professional in the bizarre gangland-style killings that shattered the quiet tranquility of two well-to-do southern communities. But soon a suspicion grew that turned their focus to family. The Sharps. The Newsoms. The Lynches. The only link between the three families was a beautiful and aristocratic young mother named Susie Sharp Newsom Lynch. Could this former child "princess" and fraternity sweetheart have committed such barbarous crimes? And what about her gun-loving first cousin and lover, Fritz Klenner, son of a nationally renowned doctor?

Let's Kill Mom: Four Texas Teens and a Horrifying Murder Pact


Donna Fielder - 2015
    The worst was yet to come… Days before, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Bailey, her thirteen-year-old brother David, and their friends Paul Henson and Merrilee White had made a gruesome pact: they’d kill their parents, steal their cars and credit cards, and flee to Canada. Paul and Merrilee’s parents thwarted their fates, but Jennifer and David’s mother Susan Bailey wasn’t so lucky. When the devoted mother returned home from work, her two children and their friend Paul took turns stabbing her and slicing her throat. When they were done, they fled in Susan’s car. They made it as far as South Dakota before being arrested. What really led them to make such a despicable pact? The answers would cast a disturbing new light on the way we see the all-American family, our neighbors, our children—and the society that nurtured them.Now an Investigation Discovery TV Special

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?


Ethan Brown - 2016
    The women came to be known as the Jeff Davis 8, and local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, opening a floodgate of media coverage and stirring a wave of panic across Jennings’ class-divided neighborhoods. The Jeff Davis 8 had been among society’s most vulnerable—impoverished, abused, and mired with mental illness. They engaged in sex work as a means of survival. And their underworld activity frequently occurred at a decrepit no-tell motel called the Boudreaux Inn. As the cases went unsolved, the community began to look inward. Rumors of police corruption and evidence tampering, of collusion between street and shield, cast the serial killer theory into doubt. But what was really going on in the humid rooms of the Boudreaux Inn? Why were crimes going unsolved and police officers being indicted? What had the eight women known? And could anything be done do stop the bloodshed? Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to posit what happened during each victim’s final hours.